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Why don't you plant some hellebores instead of grass? Grass is sooooo boring! If I were you, I would naturalise the area with snowdrops (expensive ones, yellow ones and quaint one as they will bring in money!) Also, Erythrouium. Skunky fritillaria imperalis. Just one blub will turn into several. I have to pay through my nose to get that much land .. and you pave it with GRASS!

You don't really need to spend money on vermiculite and perlite! The leaf mould is god send. But I think I would love to be your grass - pampered grass!

Why don't you plant some hellebores instead of grass? Grass is sooooo boring! If I were you, I would naturalise the area with snowdrops (expensive ones, yellow ones and quaint one as they will bring in money!) Also, Erythrouium. Skunky fritillaria imperalis. Just one blub will turn into several. I have to pay through my nose to get that much land .. and you pave it with GRASS!

You don't really need to spend money on vermiculite and perlite! The leaf mould is god send. But I think I would love to be your grass - pampered grass!

Thank you for the specific suggestions. I have an ulterior motive. This heavily shaded area stresses plants. We also have a lime rich cherty clay that becomes like concrete in the upcoming dry months. I use wood chips, sugar, compost, vermiculite, perlite, and anything else that will help moisture stay and add some softening effect to this dirt. Also I will get around to trimming some limbs up to allow in a bit more light.

Because the wife does not like the way it looks. And in truth it is not enough mass to overcome the nature of our clay. It will drop the ph though, as evidenced by the difference between my lawn ph and my garden ph. But mid 7s is still not where I would like it to be for some plants. Another aspect is inviting the fungi to party where you are working . It will overrun us in this wet environment. There is no balance because food is on the table. Balance comes after it has settled.

One reason it is hard to even grow grass is our water. It is so full of lime it is hard to describe. I don't want to boil water for too long because the pot is hard to clean. So whether we want to or not, we lime as we water during the dry period of June-October.